<p>How much vocab do you guys memorize, and how does it reflect on your score? I've heard from 200 words all the way to 2000 words! If you know a really good list or book to memorize, please link/name it! Also, how much time do you spend on each vocab question?</p>
<p>I never memorized vocab and got a 750 in CR (en route to a 2330 in one shot). Now I tell my students to avoid it like the plague. Your time is much better spent learning Greek/Latin roots and prefixes/suffixes. It’ll be much more likely to help you in the reading passages and maybe even the writing section. Plus you have just no way of knowing if you are wasting your time on those 200 (-2000) words which may not even show up on the test when you could be studying something that will certainly help you a lot more on the test and in college/beyond.</p>
<p>Edit: You want to move through the Sentence Completions very rapidly. They increase in order of difficulty and the reading passages take everybody a much longer time if they are being thorough. I generally don’t advise more than 45-60 seconds per SC.</p>
<p>Well I bought Direct Hits volume 1 and 2 yesterday. I’ll get it in the mail later this week. I looked around CC and most people recommend it.</p>
<p>I usually spend anywhere from 10-30 seconds on SC, although I do miss a few of the hard ones in each CR section. I also have a lot of difficulty with the passages. My CR score has never been above a 700, yet my math/writing scores are usually anywhere from 750-800. I’d really like to get my CR score up to that range too.</p>
<p>How are you relatively speaking with the different reading passages? Short/Long/Double</p>
<p>Also, do you notice you do better/worse with fiction/non-fiction/scientific type passages? If you see a pattern there (you’re consistently worse with a particular genre), practice that one a LOT.</p>
<p>It’s pretty inconsistent. I’m not particularly solid on any of them. I’ve taken roughly 10 practice PSAT/SATS in the last year, and my CR errors are just all over the place haha. I’ve also taken an SAT prep class: TestMasters.</p>
<p>Until a week ago, I was memorizing ~50-75 words per day (depending on how lazy I was on that particular day).
I started studying in June.</p>
<p>On each vocab question, I try not to spend more than 30 seconds so that I have more time to thoroughly read through the passages.</p>
<p>Gomdorri: Wow, that’s 2000+! Do you completely memorize each word or just get the gist of it? Also, have you taken any test to see how well it paid off?</p>
<p>Flashandcrash: You’re right, I usually narrow it down to 2 answers that both seem right and pick the wrong one! It’s hard to understand why 1 answer is “more right” than the other. Thank you so much for the guide. :)</p>
<p>Gomdorri: Wow, that’s 2000+! Do you completely memorize each word or just get the gist of it? Also, have you taken any test to see how well it paid off?
^ Just get the gist… well… idk.
What I do (or did before I got lazy hah) was I typed up a list in the morning (crammed onto one page somehow), read it thoroughly during breakfast, and then just went on with my regular activities throughout the day. I just skimmed intermittently for several 5-10 minute periods and for ones I had real difficulty with, I made sentences that I “planned to post on facebook”–of course I never actually posted any of the imaginary statuses that I thought of (lolol that would be so weird. I don’t even use facebook much anyway) it helped. I also used free iPhone apps for vocab. I jumprope every day, and so after I’m exhausted, I just study that. The words repeat, and I’ve gone from having I think 600 words I don’t know to around 90 on one app from doing that. Again, I don’t try to force myself to study. I just nonchalantly do it… partially because I have trouble remembering stuff if I try to concentrate for a long time, and partially because I’m just too lazy to put in that effort LOL.</p>
<p>And yes. On my first test I ever took, I got a 1490-1530 scaled score on the SAT and on my last practice test (which was like a week ago lol like I said I’m starting to slack off big time, which is probably not the best idea) I got a 2400.</p>
<p>That excludes the essay though. And I usually score in the 760 range for CR now.</p>
<p>Ooh, well it certainly paid off! Right now, I’m learning ~25 words a day. Once I get through all 500 or so, I’ll repeat. I’m using Quizlet, so hopefully that helps.</p>